which, though its purpose may have been to test him the more sharply,
seemed yet to bear witness to the pure and free humanity of her soul.

She asked him after his parental home and was charmed with his naive
rapture at escaping the psychical atmosphere of the cradle-songs of
his mother's house. She was also pleased with his attitude toward his
younger brothers and sisters, equally devoid, as it was, of
exaggeration or condescension. Everything about him seemed to her
simple and sane and full of ardour after information and maturity.

Niebeldingk sat quietly in his corner ready, at need, to smooth over
any outbreak of uncouth youthfulness. But there was no occasion. Fritz
confined himself within the limits of modest liberty and used his mind
vigorously but with devout respect and delighted obedience. Once only,
when the question of the necessity of authority came up, did he
go far.

"I don't give a hang for any authority," he said. "Even the mild
compulsion of what are called high-bred manners may go to the
deuce for me!"

Niebeldingk was about to interfere with some reconciling remark when
he observed, to his astonishment, that Alice who, as a rule, was
bitterly hostile to all strident unconventionality, had taken
no offence.

"Let him be, Niebeldingk," she said. "As far as he is concerned he is,
doubtless, in the right. And nothing would be more shameful than if
society were already to begin to make a featureless model boy of him."